


Hang the Stars

by crimsonherbarium



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Creation, Drinking, Established Relationship, Heaven & Hell, Hurt Crowley, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Power Outage, Stargazing, The Fall (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 23:03:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19451287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonherbarium/pseuds/crimsonherbarium
Summary: The lights had gone out all over London, and an angel and a demon sat drinking on the roof of a bookshop that had been there for a little over two hundred years now.Aziraphale asks Crowley a question and opens old wounds.





	Hang the Stars

The lights had gone out. 

The reason didn’t matter; a failed relay somewhere, a power station that had suddenly stopped producing power, a line cut by a fallen tree. The end result was that a significant chunk of London had been plunged into darkness.

And in that darkness, an angel and a demon were sitting on the roof of a bookshop in Soho that had been there for a little over two hundred years now. They sat beside each other in matching vinyl folding chairs that one or the other of them had miracled into being, sharing a bottle of scotch between them, looking up at the stars that, for once, no longer had to fight the ambient light pollution over London to shine. 

“What about that business with the telephone surveys?” Aziraphale was saying in consternation. “Don’t tell me that was you.”

“Err…” Crowley looked away pointedly. 

“Oh, good Lord.” Aziraphale sipped from his glass and sighed. “Well, I suppose it’s good they’re going out of fashion now.”

“Wouldn’t be so sure about that,” the demon muttered.

“Ah, well. I suppose there are more evil things you could’ve been getting up to.” Aziraphale sighed, looking upward. It was almost dark enough to see the nebulous arm of the milky way spiraling outward overhead. “Crowley,” he said, a question having just occurred to him. “Can I ask—why Alpha Centauri?”

“Hmm?”

“When you said you wanted to run off together. Why Alpha Centauri of all places?”

Crowley was silent for a moment, looking up at the sky. When he did speak, it was with an uncharacteristic softness. “It was the first star I ever created.”

The full implication of this didn’t hit Aziraphale immediately. _“You_ created?”

“Mm. Yes.” Crowley drank his scotch and sighed. “I liked creating, you know. It was one of the better parts of…of before.”

Aziraphale, feeling much more sober than he had a moment before, set his glass down on the rooftop beside him. “Before the Fall,” he said, his words more of a statement than a question. 

Crowley nodded.

“Do you…I’m sorry, that’s dreadfully invasive of me. I shouldn’t ask.”

“Ask?” Crowley raised an eyebrow. 

“Do you miss it? Being an angel, I mean,” Aziraphale said, feeling awful for even posing the question. He knew it was a sore spot for Crowley. He’d often suspected that Crowley’s outward insistence of how much he liked being a demon was nothing more than a front to cover old wounds. He’d never picked apart the bandages. He’d always reasoned that there was no reason to pour salt in them now, when there was really nothing to be done about it. Crowley was Fallen. He always would be Fallen. There were no two ways about it. 

“Do I miss it?” Crowley repeated, as if he were asking himself the question. “Swanning about in beige, always following orders, having to spend every waking moment with Gabriel?” The way he spoke the archangel’s name was reminiscent of the foulest curse word he could possibly conjure. “No. I don’t miss that.” 

Crowley looked skyward, his mind a million miles away. Aziraphale stayed earthbound, watching the lines of his face. The way they softened. The bittersweet turn of his lips. 

“I do miss creating,” he said after a fashion. “The stars…oh, the stars, angel, you can’t possibly imagine how it felt to hang them in the heavens one by one. There are some days when I can almost remember it.”

Aziraphale sat still and listened, afraid that if he moved a single muscle the moment would pop like a soap bubble. He didn’t dare breathe. 

“The Flame Nebula,” Crowley sighed. “That was one of mine. Always had a flair for nebulas. It’s a bit like doing a painting—you’ve got to be able to feel out how to put the colors in the right spot. If you cock it up it just comes out as a pile of ugly grey mush…” He trailed off, his mouth pressing into a thin line. 

Aziraphale waited, hoping Crowley was going to say more, but there was only silence. 

He realized with horror some moments later that Crowley’s shoulders were shaking. 

“Crowley,” he said, anxiety coloring his voice. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked—” 

The demon took off his sunglasses, which were already more than pointless in a blackout anyway, and there were tears running down his face. “I remember it, Aziraphale,” he said plaintively. “I remember all of it. Not the sort of thing you forget. Heaven. The beginning. The Fall…wish I didn’t remember the Fall, it hurt like Hell and honestly it hasn’t stopped hurting since. You ever wonder why everyone down there is such a bastard? It’s because we all remember, every last one of us, and because it _never—stops—hurting._ It’s like a piece of your soul’s been burned away, and you’re left to cope with the phantom pains for all eternity. From that point on, you’re something…less than yourself. And you’re aware of it every second that you exist.”

Aziraphale fumbled for words and came up empty. “I’m…I’m sorry.”

“That you asked or that I answered?” There was aggression evident in every line of Crowley’s body, a snake poised to strike if provoked. 

“Neither,” Aziraphale replied, his voice quavering. “I’m sorry that they hurt you. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. But I want to. I really do.”

Crowley made a noise that was half-hiss and half-sigh, and the fight went out of him. He drained his glass of scotch and wiped roughly at his face. “It’s not your fault, Aziraphale. You get used to it after a while.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to suffer in silence.” The angel picked up the scotch bottle and refilled his glass. “You know that if it’s getting to be too much, I’ll always be here to listen.”

“You might not like what I have to say.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Aziraphale shook his head. “Not to me.”

Crowley took Aziraphale’s hand and squeezed it, and the angel understood the gesture implicitly as the thanks Crowley was unable to put into words. They sat like that for a time, looking out over a darkened city, mulling the taste of peat and caramel over on their tongues. 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale said after a fashion.

“Hmm?”

“Tell me more about the stars.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. If you enjoyed my work, please consider leaving me a comment! I'd love to know what you thought.


End file.
